I recently finished watching the Academy Award winning film, The King’s Speech. For those of you who have lives and don’t follow this kind of thing, this movie won awards for Best Actor, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Picture. Apart from that, it won a shit-ton of awards from all the other award shows that year. Hollywood has to have award shows monthly, because they need to continuously validate what they do for a living. Honestly, these people contribute nothing to society. Go ahead and tell me that the people who made Transformers 2 are adding things of cultural importance.

So, in order to satisfy their egos and justify getting paid millions of dollars for three-months of work a year, they need to give each other shiny metal statues. Somehow that tells them that yes, they are important. Not only that, they won this award, which means they are more awesome than they had previously realized! Here’s how a typical award presentation works.

Presenter: And the Jizzie award for Best Actor goes to, Douchey Guy!

Douchey Guy (feigning surprise): Wow, I can’t believe I won!

Presenter: Out of all the actors this year, you recited lines someone else wrote for you better than anyone else!

Notice how they never thank the writer? Why would they? After all, the writer is only the person who wrote the entire movie, slaved over every word, perfected the monologues, and tried to craft an interesting and memorable story. This is the person who arguably does the most work (it’s not the director, he’s filming what the writer put in the script), and always receives the least recognition. It’s absolute bullshit. I’m sick and tired of these actors slapping each other on the back 12 times a year for reading lines that somebody else wrote for them. Oh wow, what a tremendous skill! You’re able to read words, memorize them, and say them out loud! Quick, somebody give that guy the fucking Nobel Prize! Now that I mention it, it’s only a matter of time until they start giving out Nobel Prizes for acting. Just wait and see.

In all fairness, the writer of The King’s Speech did win an award, but does anyone really care about that? No, of course not. It’s just a formality. No one cares who wrote the movie. Just think about your own favorite movie. I bet you can name the stars and the director, but you can’t name the writer. It’s just a part of the society we live in. We have a burning desire to heap fame and attention and meaningless awards onto the people we see, but the people behind the scenes are irrelevant to us.

So, after watching The King’s Speech, I thought to myself, “You know what movie was better than this? Predator.“ Yes, that’s right, the 1987 sci-fi jungle action film starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, directed by John McTiernan, and written by Jim and John Thomas. I popped in my well-used DVD, and took detailed notes of all the reasons why Predator is a better film than The King’s Speech. Here’s a comparison.

The King’s Speech: Memorable Line – “Waiting for a king to apologize, one can wait a long wait.”

Winner: Predator

Round Four

Predator: Filmed in the jungles of Mexico.

The King’s Speech: Filmed on a former gay porn set.

Winner: The King’s Speech

Round Five

Predator: Two stars went on to become governors of U.S. states.

The King’s Speech: Two stars went on to be in more movies.

Winner: Predator

Round Six

Predator: Based on a joke that Rocky Balboa’s next opponent would be an alien.

The King’s Speech: Based on a true story.

Winner: The King’s Speech

It doesn't get any manlier than this.

Round Seven

Predator: Homo-erotic bicep-squeeze handshake.

The King’s Speech: Homo-erotic speech exercises and radio broadcast in a private room.

Winner: Predator

Round Eight

Predator: Memorable Scene – Destroying the jungle with a mini-gun.

The King’s Speech: Memorable Scene – The king listens to his own, non-stuttering voice on a record.

Winner: Predator

Round Nine

Predator: Body count: 91.

The King’s Speech: Body count: 1.

Winner: Predator

Round Ten

Predator: Non-stop 80s action.

The King’s Speech: Non-stop lack of action.

Winner: Predator

Verdict

Predator: 8

The King’s Speech: 2

Winner: Predator

As you can see, Predator trumps The King’s Speech in nearly every category. Predator is a great 80s action movie. In fact, it sports a cool 76% on Rotten Tomatoes. So, it is almost universally recognized as a work of art. And why not? Any movie that showcases close-up after close-up of well-oiled biceps for nearly 2 hours couldn’t be anything other than a film for the ages. So, with Predator curb-stomping The King’s Speech so handily, it must also destroy it in the critics reviews, right? Wrong! The King’s Speech daintily struts along Rotten Tomatoes with a whopping 95% score. Really?! That high? It’s not Casablanca or Dumb and Dumber, so how it could get such an astronomical score is beyond my comprehension.

Now, of course you’re asking, “But Brik old chap, what of the common man? What does he have to say?” If you were to go around and ask the average person what they thought of it, they’d reply, “LOL TEH KING’S SPEECH WAS SOOOO GOOOOD I REALLY LIEK THE SCENE WHERE HE SAYS FUCK A LOT LOL!” But it doesn’t make sense. After all, they say “fuck” way more times in Predator than in The King’s Speech, so it must be something else. After spending seconds deep in thought, the reason finally came to me: the movie-going public loves to watch films about rich white people and their problems.

It’s true, and there happens to be an entire genre dedicated to it. The genre is called bourgeoisploitation. Typically it is a historical drama, and even more typically the historical figures are rich white people. Often times they are royalty. Everyone will speak in The Queen’s English regardless of year or location. For example, in Gladiator, the Romans all speak with proper English accents (for those paying attention they should speak Latin, or the very least English with Italian accents). It showcases the central rich white person’s struggle against a trifling annoyance, which to them is a hardship. The ending teaches us the lesson that we will always overcome obstacles with perseverance. Finally, the movie is made for the sole purpose of winning it’s star(s) an Academy Award.

The movie-going public loves to watch this kind of shit. Just look at movies like The Queen, The Duchess, The King’s Speech, Elizabeth, Marie Antoinette, The Young Victoria, Her Majesty Mrs. Brown, and the TV series The Tudors just to name a few. And that’s only a short list of movies dealing directly with European royalty. It even has modern day parallels such as in The Facebook Movie. There are shitload of other movies, TV shows, novels that we are obsessed with as a culture. For example, see any film-adaptation of anything written by Jane Austen.

Why are we so obsessed with bourgeoisploitation? I think it’s because mouth-breathers like to watch these movies and say, “LOL THAT RICH WHITE PERSON HAS REAL PROBLEMS JUST LIKE ME LOL.” That has to be the appeal. I can’t imagine what else it could be. Who wants to watch a movie about a fucking king, who has had his entire life handed to him on a silver platter, who has never had to work a day in his life, who is super rich, and his one flaw is that he stutters? OH I FEEL SO BAD FOR YOU! WHAT AN INCREDIBLE STORY OF TRIUMPH THAT YOU WERE ABLE TO OVERCOME YOUR ONE OBSTACLE WITH NOTHING BUT YOUR MILLIONS OF DOLLARS AND UNLIMITED RESOURCES!

People loved The King’s Speech because it was a bourgeoisploitation movie. After its success, there is no doubt that Hollywood producers are attempting to scrounge up every last story of personal struggle that happened to a rich white person. We really should appreciate everything the rich, white aristocracy has done for us, such as collecting taxes while not paying taxes themselves, stating that black people are 3/5 a real human, not allowing voting rights unless you own property, starting wars, and inbreeding. Those rich white people really have mo’ money and mo’ problems. We need to give them our support, because they have such a heavy burden.

Mo' Money, Mo' Problems - A Statistical Analysis

As for The King’s Speech itself, there was nothing all that great about it. The production values were OK, although most of the movie was confined to a former gay porn set. The acting was good, but certainly not outstanding. The directing, writing, music, editing, etc were all average at best. This movie is nothing to write home about, especially since it was made solely in the hopes of winning awards. It was a standard bourgeoisploitation movie. If you haven’t seen it, don’t bother. On the other hand, if you haven’t seen Predator, you need to go see it immediately. I think I’ll go watch it again, right now.

Verdicts:

Predator: Awesome

The King’s Speech: Shitty

Special thanks to Bomby von Bombsville for his thoughts on the bourgeoisploitation genre.

Apart from your comments about film awards I would have to disagree with you. I loved both films, being British myself and like anyone from Britain with an education or half a brain cell. I believe most would appreciate the Kings Speech if not only for its historic value and insite into Britains past. As for the acting, I found it superlative. Please give an example of acting above average? However Predator, hands down wins for entertainment purposes yes but for that fact how can you compare the 2 genres? Frankly this just suggests you have a chip on your shoulder when it comes to anyone having money. If your friend won the lottery, would you oust him from your friendship group for not earning it by working?
To conclude, I would suggest if you dont like “bourgeoisploitation movies” maybe you should simply choose not to watch them and keep to your homo-erotic bicep-squeezing movies!

Thanks for stopping by and leaving a message. I think you have missed the point of this article: comedy. Obviously, you can’t really compare two separate genres. Although, that being said, I would still rather watch Predator over The King’s Speech any day of the week. :)

Simply for the fact you were so polite and and relaxed after my a little rant, I had to reply. Apologies for the misunderstanding however you have found/made a new follower. Can I make a suggestion to write a review on “The Impossible” movie just released. After watching it myself Id love to hear your thoughts? (I was not a fan)

I would put Predators in every Oscar film to wreak havoc on said films, especially the War Horse. The four years that War Horse spans is also how long the movie felt, and its characters are generic and forgettable.